The Cost of Following Jesus (Luke 9:57-62)

57As they were walking along the road, a man said to him, "I will follow you wherever you go."

58 Jesus replied, "Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head."

59 He said to another man, "Follow me." But the man replied, "Lord, first let me go and bury my father."

60 Jesus said to him, "Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God."

61 Still another said, "I will follow you, Lord; but first let me go back and say good-by to my family."

62 Jesus replied, "No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God."

Reflection:

What is it that we want in our Christian Walk with the Lord?

The paradox of human ideology is this:

- We want God to bless us, yet we refuse to devote time to pray or commit to His ways.

- We complain and grumble that life is not fair and God doesn't care about us, yet we have never been fair to God nor cared about Him.

The truth of the matter is this. We want all of God's blessings but yet only wanting to give the bare minimal to Him without any disturbances or inconvenience to our lives and the things we like to do.

Whenever asked to served God and His community, we tend to be calculative and evaluate how much can we gain from it or whether it is economical and effective for us. We are always counting the cost and only give to God when we feel it will reap us immediate tangible returns.

We tend to give to God only out of our convenience. We simply want everything at our own comfort.

Ungrateful, stiff-necked, stubborn, selfish... these are just some words to describe how much we have fallen. May God reveal to us the true conditions of our hearts so that we will wake up from our slumber and passive attitude.

"If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it. What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit his very self? If anyone is ashamed of me and my words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his glory and in the glory of the Father and of the holy angels. I tell you the truth, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the kingdom of God." - Luke 9:23-27